It used to be a sleepy little town – Virudhachalam. We stayed there for 1 year in 1980 where I started my schooling. My grandparents had stayed there most of their life and I have lots of childhood memories from that town. And finally after about 27 years I finally got to visit Virudhachalam again. The opportunity dawned since we had to visit a closeby place (Neyveli) for a wedding. It was a 4 hour drive from Trichy to Neyveli. On our way back we stopped at Virudhachalam and finally managed to locate the old house – I couldn’t even recognise it as it had been renovated in the front and a lot of shops had been built near the entrance. Once I stepped in the familiar study room, hall and staircase were the same. The huge area behind was still there although the number of trees were lesser. We then made our way to the school where I started my schooling! It felt great!
And then we dropped into the hospital where my grandfather worked – the Danish Mission Hospital. The hospital had unfortunately shut down and was overgrown with trees and bushes. Luckily we managed to find the watchman who knew my grandfather and he opened the hospital and showed us his photograph. The chapel inside was beautiful with a lovely cross at the altar – yet noone to use it!
It took us about an hour to do all this and at the end it brought memories flooding back to my heart.
Things had changed – the town was crowded, the house unrecognizable from the road, the hospital had closed and the school had become bigger. We were a closely knit family and it was wonderful staying in that once sleepy town. I’m glad that even though times have changed and we all seem spread far away in different parts of the world, God has created a togetherness and bond in us and spices it up with this opportunity to visit my childhood – again!!